The present invention relates to a mobile electronic device and power management method. More particularly, the invention relates to mobile electronic devices incorporating smart card functionality and related power management methods.
Mobile payment technology has advanced from smart card platforms for user payment information to mobile device platforms. That is, user information and related payment software that was once stored by a smart card is now integrally incorporated into mobile electronic devices, such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), MP3 players, motion picture players, a portable game consoles, etc. A user may now pay for goods and services (e.g., subway/bus fares, vending machines, sales kiosks, etc.) by placing his/her mobile device incorporating smart card functionality in close proximity to a corresponding terminal device (hereafter, “terminal”).
By so doing, a reader within the terminal exchanges data signals with circuitry (e.g., a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag) in the mobile device facilitating the desired transaction. Such contactless communication of data signals between the smart card circuitry in the mobile device and the terminal is generally referred to as near field communication (NFC). Smart card enabled mobile devices may also be used to obtain physical access or information.
However, the contactless communication properties (e.g., RF characteristics, data transmission error rates, communication range, etc.) of a smart card (or smart card circuitry) mounted in a mobile device may change due to a number of causes. For example, impedance mismatching between the smart card circuitry and other mobile device components may occur. Additionally, some operating conditions or mode of the mobile device may actually interfere with the data being exchanged via contactless smart card functionality (e.g., operation of an RF module in a mobile phone, current flowing inside an MP3 player, etc.).
To minimize the potentially negative influences of these conditions and circumstances, a great deal of recent research has been directed to separating the integrated circuit (IC) facilitating analog wireless communication with the terminal RFID reader from the IC implementing the smart card functionality, and then effectively mounting both ICs within the mobile device.